DENNIS LARKINS

Dennis studied painting at Yale, Kansas City Art Institute and Colorado University. He has lived life on the front line of radical times, emerging from the Grateful Dead artist to a chronicler of skewed and alternative realities. Pioneering and refining a bold new approach to artistic expression, Dennis works in a style forged from both traditional and space age ingredients as he paints sculpted relief on canvas, creating layered works of arresting depth and intense optical punch.

Taking what he learned as a painter of stage backdrops for the San Francisco Opera, Dennis almost single-handedly designed and painted the set decorations for Bill Graham's annual "Day On The Green" music festivals, such as the original legendary "Monster Rock" festivals, ( featuring Aerosmith and Ted Nugent), concerts for Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Journey, The Grateful Dead, and many more legends of the seventies rock and roll. His career as a rock and roll set designer reached its zenith when he designed and implemented the Rolling Stones 1981 American tour set package in conjunction with Japanese graphic artist Kazu.

After four decades of persevering along a formative, solitary and expansive path of painting, practicing the theatrical trades of scenic art, set design and more recently designing for theme parks, he has been enjoying a sculpted-canvas renaissance. And in a great gestalt-millennial moment, he has found himself among the fellow revolutionaries who have come together, quite unintentionally, to form the pop-surrealist underground. Even though subcultures have their trends, Dennis still paints his own road!